Official Trailer for Potential Oscar Spoiler ‘The Sapphires’

After it’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May, the musical comedy The Sapphires was quickly picked up by The Weinstein Company for U.S. distribution with an enthusiastic Harvey Weinstein reportedly saying “Have you seen The Sapphires? The Artist just happened again.”

We finally get to see a glimpse of what the master Oscar campaigner was raving about with the first official trailer for The Sapphires courtesy of The Playlist. Set in Australia in 1968, the film stars Chris O’Dowd as an unsuccessful musician who discovers an Aboriginal girl group and coaches them to adapt a new Rhythm and Blues singing style. The ultimate goal is for the girls to be invited to entertain U.S. troops at war in Vietnam. Along with O’Dowd the film also stars Deborah Mailman, Jessica Mauboy, Shari Sebbens, and Miranda Tapsell. It is directed by

The Sapphires trailer and synopsis make it seem pretty unoriginal, but when it played out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival it reportedly had audiences up on their feet singing and dancing. Harvey Weinstein has been able to nurture a crowd pleaser to Oscar glory before and The Sapphires sounds like a good opportunity to cater to more broad audiences. There is no official U.S. release date yet, but expect it to drop right around the end of the year.

The Sapphires will play at the Toronto International Film Festival this month, where we will find out how much of an Oscar player it really is after it faces off with many of the big studios’ Fall award hopefuls.

Check out the official trailer below and be sure to share your thoughts in the comments!

The Sapphires opens in the U.K. on November 2, 2012 and it currently has a TBA U.S. release date.

About Alex Carlson

Alex started Film Misery in early 2009 after living the site’s title for many years. His film obsession began in high school when he and his friends would see all of the Oscar Best Picture nominees and try to make predictions...Full Bio.